Jeff Vrabel: The tale of the foosball hustler and wombat pee

Monday

Sep 24, 2007 at 12:01 AMSep 24, 2007 at 4:03 AM

I think I ran into a foosball hustler last weekend at the bar.

Jeff Vrabel

I think I ran into a foosball hustler last weekend at the bar.

I can't be sure, because I've never actually encountered a foosball hustler before, because I never for one moment considered the physical possibility that a foosball hustler might exist, that there might be a person in the world who plays it for more than the occasional beer-fueled killing of time, that anyone might remotely take seriously an activity wherein you rocket a marble back and forth on a table populated exclusively by inanimate red plastic molds with a curtain rod through their torsos, that there would be someone, somewhere in America who would look at average Joe Sixpacks in an average bar playing some average foosball and sniff -- actually sniff -- "Pfft, these guys don't know what they're doing."

Let me back up a bit, and maybe if you're reading this you can help me. In case you're not familiar, or in case it goes by different names in other parts of the country, such as "table soccer" or "niblet jousting" or "Martin," the sport of foosball, it is important to note first and foremost, is not a sport. It is a drinking activity, something people do in their basements while the game is on or when the pool table is broken, something that the brilliant late comedian Mitch Hedberg once described as a cross between "soccer and shish kebabs." It is not a sport that is, for instance, in the Olympics. I think. Hang on, let me Google that. Nope, not in the Olympics. Thought so.

Here is how I play it -- and here is how I must confess to assuming most people play it, unless there's some sort of mysterious foosball underground of which I am unaware, and if there is, please somebody e-mail me about it, because I have to see what you people dress like: I play it by waiting until someone drops the ball (or, as it's known in foosball lingo, "the ball") onto the table, whereupon I spin whichever foosball stick thing happens to be in my hand until one of three things happens: my hand gets tired, I need to use my hand to pick up my beer, or the Cubs score comes on the TV, and I leave the table mid-game. Yes, yes, I fully admit that I do not have the stick-to-it-iveness required of our country's finest foosball gladiators.

Sure, there are variations on this strategy. For instance, sometimes I will have a teammate, so that there are two of us furiously spinning the stick thing around in frenzied chaos instead of one, which is what in my foosball world is called "strategy." Other strategies include ordering another drink, occasionally referring to the other team as "sheilas" and attempting to "psych" the other player(s) out by cleverly warning them about something that I make up, such as that they are currently playing the game while standing in a heaping fresh pile of wombat pee (these tactics are not explicitly banned by any official foosball organization that I can find; I Googled that, too).

When played in this manner, the average foosball game for me takes anywhere from 30 to 48 seconds, which is about as much consecutive time as I generally wish to invest in an activity of this sort. I mean, it's just a screwy bar game, not something serious, like beer pong.

So anyway, there we are, myself and a buddy named Adam, engaged with a couple friends in a spirited and fully nonsensical round of shish kebab-spinning when ambles up an older gent in a loose, partly translucent white linen shirt, slicked-back Vince McMahon hair and a giant gold necklace that spelled out "FOOS CHAMP" in gold diamond lettering of the sort you might find located somewhere on Kanye West (Editor's Note: This detail is entirely made up, but makes for a better story, and let's be honest, we're not solving the health care crisis here).

After a few moments of coolly regarding us -- during which time, I'm not kidding, the guy is snickering to a neighbor and making offhanded, sniffly cracks about how good we are at foosball, which we admittedly are not, because -- and I beg the reader to forgive my making this point again -- IT'S FOOSBALL, and no one is that good at foosball, except this guy, who proceeds to call next and absolutely decimate us in a stunningly efficient fashion. This guy -- again, all true -- took around 30 seconds to set up each move, lining up with cold, mathematical precision his every shot, each of which would rocket into the goal as though trailed by a wispy plume of smoke. It was impressive to watch the first time. Then, I think we all kind of left the table, because if you, like I now have, ever find yourself in the company of a foosball hustler, there is only one course of action: Get out of there immediately, unless, of course, you can get him to step in wombat pee.

Jeff Vrabel is a freelance writer who's better at darts anyway. He can be reached at www.jeffvrabel.com.